


Livin' La Vida Loca

by archea2



Category: Supernatural
Genre: B&B, Brotherly Love, Domestic, Gen, Hugs, Humor, Retired Hunter Dean Winchester, Retired Hunter Sam Winchester, bit of casefic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-14 21:42:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18060689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archea2/pseuds/archea2
Summary: The boys acquire a B&B. (Inspired by a recent piece of news.)





	Livin' La Vida Loca

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the recent news about Jensen buying a B&B: https://atxrealestatenews.com/2019/03/05/something-supernatural-going-on-in-travis-heights-ask-tv-star-jensen-ackles-about-that/
> 
> I'm hardly an expert in inn-keeping, so take my take as Sam and Dean would - with a thick grain of salt. Part of the incidents described were inspired by Joan Campbell's (yup, Campbell!) humorous memoirs of her days as a B&B manager. Any mistake or inconsistency mine.

“Anything?” Sam asks, prompting Dean's scoffing, _Should have returned that froufrou magic wand thirty years ago, ruined your psyche_ noises.

Chuck spreads his hands candidly wide, a smile parting his beard. “Anything. Consider it a fee for babysitting Michael until he and I could have a little, ah, bonding time. So, Dean. What do you wish for?”

“Dude, do I look like a mark to you?”

“Hmmm. Scripture-wise, you’re more of a Thomas. Once a doubter...”

“He’s had a bad encounter with a pearl,” Sam butts in, kicking Dean stealthily under the map table.

“Oh, the Baozhu? Sorry about that. Very temperamental, the time-space continuum, ever since the Flood reboot, which, yeah, not my greatest hit. Smite. Um.”

“Eh,” Dean says, because nothing mollifies a Winchester like another poor bastard ‘fessing up to _his_ fuck-ups. “What’s a little cosmic consequence between friends...”

“Nothing I cannot fix, anyway.”

“... and it gave us the vineyard, right? Silver lining, my man. Silver lining.”

“Thank you, Dean. And now, to quote a blast from the past... who’s ready to deal?”

Sam takes a long-lasting breath.

 

* * *

 

They call the B&B _The Sandy Toes_ , once Sam has struck Dean’s _The Family Business_ (“Too generic”), _Good Times Bed Times_ (“Too risqué”), _Food in the Rain_ (“Not Britain, Dean”), _Beer & Burger _ (“Not the concept, Dean”), and _Bacchus & Bitch _ (“...What?”).

It’s a (now) serene white mansion, with a columned porch and a lamp-post, which Sam says is quite the Narnia touch and Dean says will do as an EMF sentinel. It comes with a carriage house, which Dean says is perfect for Baby and Sam says is 1.200 foot square, Dean, let’s be practical here. And it stands in a demure cradle of grass and trees that look as apple-green as if this was Vermont instead of Galveston, Texas, and the closest beach to Kansas.

“Huh-uh, I’ll ask him,” Dean tells the desk phone, blithely oblivious to its I AM A STRICTLY BUSINESS PHONE, DEAN sticky note. He draws it away from his ear. “Hey! Dad says, if that skunk you spotted is still around he can pencil it in between Monday’s chupacabra and his weekly shave…. It is? Awesome!”

It is not. Sam saw to it right away, because no one is savvier than Sam on how to cage your live-in nuisance. But Dean is over the moon whenever Dad takes a legacy break and makes the twelve-hour drive from Lebanon, with or without Mom, so Sam only nods. He waits until Dean has said “Love you too, sir!” and hung up to slip behind the desk, right in time for the phone to ring on its own.

“... Six extra towels, antibacterial soap, surgical needle, spare flannels, you got it.” Sam pauses to smile across the desk at the new arrivals, a British family complete with a tiny little girl in a Peter Pan collar and a very shaggy Rough Collie. The parents are looking at him and each other. “... No, the flannels are complimentary. You guys need a hand? Or a fifth? Okay then, don’t forget our meet-and-greet sundowner at six.” Sam hangs up, beams down. “Mr. and Mrs. Kebbles? I’m Sam, and you’re all very welcome at The Sandy Toes. Now let me see. Yours is Room 4, our best double - very quiet, a fair view of the beach, and we’ll have a cot up for you in no time.”

Mr. and Mrs. Kebbles look at each other again. “Er, thank you,” the father says.

“No problem at all. And, as you will find tomorrow, this is our British Bake-Off Week, so I hope you’ll enjoy your breakfast.” They’ve been taking in hunters, not all the time but fairly often, who need a break, a stopover, nursing triage services or a Chuck-brand, FBI-proof sanctuary for a while. They get a free view of the Gulf Coast; _The Sandy Toes_ gets free temp staff, ahem, independent contractors.

“Minus the pilchard crust,” Ketch’s voice floats in from the kitchen. “Your brother really needs to vary his taste in pies, Sam.”

But the Kebbleses look relieved, and Pepper the Collie thumps his bushy tail when Sam steals a quick caress down his back.

 

* * *

 

1 is towelled up, 4 cotted up, and Dean is sweet-talking Ms. Haskins from Insurance & Taxes when Sam returns from their laundry room. (It still feeds odd, not having to feed the drums a token. Or talk Dean out of hustling the other patrons at strip-poker.)

“My mistake, really,” Dean is saying, his gaze diving into Ms. Haskins’ tortoiseshell glasses, that must have seen better days in the hipster 80es. “Man thinks he knows his own strength, so man rolls up his sleeves… flexes his arms… gets down to business” - his voice drops to a calloused cello - “and next thing he knows, man’s put a hole in the wall moving a great big piano. Bam, wham, thank you -”

Behind them, Sam coughs emphatically.

“Wham,” Ms. Haskins repeats, a little dazed. Then, rallying her wits: “But, Mr. Campbell, _four_ holes?”

Dean smiles beatifically.

“What can I say? It was Sam’s childhood piano. Little brother here could play _Daisy Bell_ before he was five - tinkle, tinkle, tinkle. Still does. Sings along, too, when he’s in the mood.”

“Ooooh!” Ms. Haskins no longer offers any resistance. “Then of course you had to find the right feng shui perspective. Your brother’s so lucky to have you.”

“As am I.” Dean’s eyes twinkle, impervious to Sam’s eloquent third-finger puppet.

“Well, I’m sure we can work it into the Accidental Damage clause,” Ms. Haskins concedes, before she turns to Sam and lowers the tortoiseshells slowly down her nose. “You know, my Calisthenics Club would _love_ some musical accompan -”

In a stroke of luck, the lamp-post starts flickering like a boss. Ms. Haskins looks up, back to professional acumen, and Sam hurries outside. Cas has just popped up behind the front yard bower, Jack under his wing.

“Sam!” the boy exults, making a beeline to Sam’s hug. “John is teaching me poker!”

“No, he’s not,” follows the stern edit. “ _My_ father made it quite clear you are to learn the Harmony of the Spheres first.”

“That’s pool,” Jack translates for Sam. “John’s teaching me that too!”

(Meeting Chuck - one of Sam’s small-print provisos - had been the analogue of half a lifetime’s therapy for their cosmic little duckling, if only because Chuck acknowledging himself as Cas’s dad and Jack’s grandad was understood by Jack as official proof that Cas was his father-in-command. Chuck had refreshed their grace, gratis, and, while he was at it, the bunker’s beer cooler. Then he’d left on a promise to bring Great-Aunt Amara on his next stay, an oath Sam did not expect to see fulfilled in the course of his or Dean’s natural years. Not that you ever could tell with Chuck.)

“That’s great, Jack. So, what’s up with you two? Not  on a case, are you?”

“On principle, no. I’m taking Jack on a backpacking gap week.” Cas is looking around as he speaks, the flaps of his trenchcoat rising and flaring around his legs under the strong sea-breeze. He leans forward for a forcefully hushed confidence. “The lamp-post is flickering, Sam.”

“Well… yeah. You guys aren’t exactly natural visitors.”

“Still...”

But all Sam can see is Ms. Haskins being pressed to partake of the sundowner, by now in full swing in the yard. Half of the natural guests are thumping one another flannels or, in Room 1’s case, giving them a gentle pat. Dean is handing round glasses, tumblers, flutes, bowls of peanuts, his naked smile. Pepper the Collie has positioned himself under their old oak tree, having pegged it rightly as a squirrels’ B&B.

“Hey,” Sam tells Jack, wrapping an arm around the kid. “Let’s get you a Coke, then we’ll see about dinner.”

 

* * *

 

“Yes,” Arthur Ketch says past a long-suffering upper lip, “I can make the lad tiffin. But that means two eggs less for breakfast, and you did say to give that Lacko lady extra bacon, because Caleb’s partner, the psychic, told you she’s here undercover for the local channel.”

“Oh,” Sam says. Planning “tiffin” for two dozen refugees a year ago had been less of a hassle than facing up to Ketch’s merciless egg count.

“Or he can have the bacon, and I’ll make kedgeree for breakfast?”

“Better not.” The Kebbleses might be up to it. But Dean and the hunters are bound to kick-start a fuss and jeopardize Miss Lacko’s good will - if she has any left after being served bits of boiled haddock in glow-in-the-dark rice.

“You’re aware that kedgeree is not a monster species, Sam?”

Sam wipes his brow. “Just -  give him my share,” he says. Jack’s grace may well make it superfluous to feed him, but Jack loves human food, and Sam knows better than to leave a kid on the short end of a meal when he can tighten his belt and see another day. He learnt from the best, after all.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Arthur says, reading his brow. “I’ll manage. But I want your word there’ll be no more Ketchup jokes from a certain co-owner. Or I’ll shorten my break, and he can make Winchester Surprise for ten and see how that goes.”

 

* * *

 

“You know I’m not the worst cook this side of Kansas, Toto?” Dean asks a few hours later.

They’re making their customary round of the grounds, having stood Cas in the lobby as a handyman-slash-night-auditor-slash-troubleshooter. The lamp-post is still flickering now and then, but Dean has put it down to the sea air getting to the wiring and promised to take a look.

Sam laughs, breathing the air down in great gulps. You’d think that after so many years of salt-and-burns the smell would be a pain in the nose. But Sam loves it, no less because Dean made it his dream retreat long ago.

“C’mon, let Ketch have his fun. He’ll be gone by Monday -”

“Preferably before Dad checks in.”

“- and you and Dad can take over. Deacon called, by the way. Said he’s taking his missus over for their silver anniversary.” It’s good to know that one of the very rare John-era vets knows and approves of their move, and knows better than to freak out at being served breakfast by his dead brother in arms.

“Ooooh, a challenge.” A jaunty smack of lips. “Bet you my chicken tastes better than his!”

Sam laughs. “Don’t tell the kid, or he’ll insist on staying the week and ruin Cas’s Grand Tour.”

He thinks of Jack as he last saw him, guzzling Coke and talking nineteen to the dozen with the Kebbleses’ little girl, pointing at various parts of the inn. “He likes it here.”

“He likes _us_ here,” Dean says. “And I like that he does. You did good by us, Sammy.”

Something rises in Sam, rolling yet solid-like, like the bedrock under the sand beneath the evergreen tide. Thirsty and slated, fresh from the heart like his blood, pounding Sam’s lungs like his breath. He knows what to call it, and how to act on it, as he stops and reaches for Dean. Dean complies readily; lets himself be drawn and gathered until his cheek is greeting Sam’s ear and his arms are circling Sam’s generous back, giving as good a measure as he gets.

He doesn’t speak while Sam rocks them together a long minute, eyes closed, sinking into their newfound peace. Then…

“Huh. Ain’t we hugging a lot these days?”

(Not that he seems to object.)

“Always read the small print,” Sam replies with a cryptic smile, and rocks him a bit more.

 

* * *

 

The pilchard crust is still  pie-sona non grata in the morning, so breakfast is largely a matter of spiced tomatoes and eggs on French toast. The hunters keep the tomatoes at bay; Mrs Lacko makes appreciative noises and doodles a star on the tablecloth.

“I swear, if she messes with my towels next,” Dean begins, but is interrupted by the VisitTexas advisor. Strike that: the Director of Quality and Standards at VisitTexas, dropping in for a surprise inspection. O frabjous day.

Too late, Sam tries to recall if he told Rudy (Room 3), who’s agreed to do room service today, to go light on the salt lines. There’s only so much fibbing about sea air density he can dish out.

“You guys have the highest turnover of staff I’ve ever seen,” the Director mutters two hours later. “Beats even the local rodeo. How you manage to even the costs…”

Sam breaks out his largest noncommittal grin. “We manage.”

Truth is, Dean has proved a dab hand at bookkeeping, his conversion quickly rounded from stretching twenty bucks over a week to feed Sammy to running an established business with an established income. Still, Sam suspects the true reason why their bank account ( _they have a bank account!_ ) is up and afloat has less to do with TripAdvisor and more with a certain faraway bearded sponsor.

The Director, having sipped up his Scotch, sets the beautiful tumbler down.

“But you've also got the best antique crockery, yesirree-bob. Family heirloom?”

(Mom did insist they split up the Men of Letters’ _trousseau_ , saying she and John hardly needed a 24 piece set of cutlery, or a king’s ransom of Depression glassware. Dad cast a wistful look at the decanter, but knew better than to argue.)

“You could say that,” Sam grins.

 

* * *

 

At lunch break, off to join Jack and Cas at the beach, he is waylaid by a very friendly collie that loses no time in sealing its forepaws to his jeans. “Hey,” Sam says, stroking Pepper’s sable and white coat. “Hey, hey, good doggie. Oh, somebody’s toes definitely got sandy!”

“Sorry! So sorry!” A panting Mrs. Kebbles trots up to them, leash in hand. “Pepper, _down_!” (She is superbly ignored.) “Oh dear, your trousers! I do apologize.”

“That’s nothing, real -”

“And for the cot. We tried our best to move him there last night, Leo and I. Repeatedly. But he’s such a heavy boy - and then, the moment we did, he leapt down again. And again. He’s really used to his ground blanket, Mr. Campbell. But I can assure you that his claws were groomed before we left Chichester: your floor boards are  _quite_  safe with him.”

Sam is dimly aware of his jaw cascading an inch lower at every new word, but it’s not until she pauses and gives him a perplexed look that he snaps it shut.

“Safe. Right. Safe,” he says, and forces his jaw into a nod. “Um, have a very good day, Mrs. Kebbles. Sorry… beach duty…. you know...”.

“You’re a lifeguard, too? Oh my! We’ve heard much about the American stamina, but -”

But Mrs. Kebbles, a wiser speaker than she knows, is now speaking to Sam’s runaway back. She shakes her head and directs Pepper to the back yard lawn, where Mr. Kebbles is sure to be lizarding the day away.

 

* * *

 

Cas is not. Cas has the utmost respect for the lizard, man’s reptilian great-grandaddy, but he himself is a vertical species. And thus, when Sam hurtles into the beach, the first thing he spots is Cas enjoying the low tide vertically. He has prepared for his bath by laying his trenchcoat over his arm and turning up both shirt-sleeves, and now stands tall in his shoes and four inches of surf.

“Cas!” Sam bellows. “Where’s Jack?”

“Ah, Sam.” Cas’s stare remains glued to the horizon, where a pin-sized head can be seen bobbing enthusiastically up and down the waves. “There’s no reason to worry. Jack could swim the moment he could speak; it’s part of a nephil’s wire-up.”

“Well, wire him back. I need to speak to him.”

Cas frowns, visibly unhappy to curtail Jack’s maiden swim, but then nods at what he sees on Sam’s face and narrows his eyes briefly. When his face relaxes again, Jack is wading towards them, clad in one of Dean’s many swimming trunks. He stops to fling his young arms open, his grandfather’s _behold, it was very good_ stamped across his smile, and yells “I love the sea!”.

“I’m glad you do,” Sam says, sincerely. “Jack, can you see that little girl?”

“Chiara?” Jack takes an earnest, full panoramic survey of the beach. “No, she’s not here. Is she still sick?”

Sick? Sam tries to picture the girl as he saw her yesterday, huddled in the adults’ shadow, her pinched little face above the white collar a duskier shade than their pink-and-sunburnt cheeks. Not a British face, he realizes now. And who dresses a child in black, these days?

“Yeah, all foggy and scratchy,” Jack adds. “So I tried to distract her by telling her about the house, but she said she can still feel the ship changing sides, all the time, and it makes her worse, poor kid. She wants her mom to make it better.”

“Oh god,” Sam says, himself sick at heart. Jack’s words are kindling a truth as clear as the brilliant afternoon sun on the wet sands, turning each wet pebble into a philosopher’s stone of gold. But a sad, somber clarity. He pulls out his phone.

“ _The Sandy Toes_ , as in potatoes,” Dean answers on the desk phone. “How can I help you?”

“Dean, is there a girl in the lobby?”

“Dude!” Dean’s voice is the very pitch of offense. “I know the house rules! Not during our opening hours, and then -”

“Not that kind of girl,” Sam says. “And, Dean? Get all hands on deck.”

 

* * *

 

“Makes sense,” Dean says, once they’ve reconvened in the kitchen. He’s eating Ketch’s fish and chips - they all are. Sam thinks it’s pretty good, actually. The fish is dewy fresh, the batter light and crispy, and the chips, while deceitfully named, come with a not unpleasant tang of basalm. If Ketch ever tires of playing Kissinger between the old and the new hunting worlds, he’s got a job lined up. “They used to call Galveston the Ellis Island of Texas.”

“Tens of thousands of immigrants sailing in until the 1920s,” Rudy says. “And not all of them made it to the shore. Least of all the kids.”

Caleb 2.0, the patched-up hunter in Room 1 and the original Caleb’s grandson, nods up from his laptop.

“Meaning, a burial at sea. The family would plead against it, ‘specially if they were Christians, because they saw a watery grave as the Empty. “Thrown into the deep”, their words. No holy ground, no pass to Heaven.”

“They were wrong,” Cas says quietly, looking at a very silent Jack.

“And they’d throw in the kid’s clothes and toys,” Caleb’s partner, the psychic, reads over his shoulder,”for fear of the disease catching on, so the families had nothing left to mourn over. Damn.”

“Some would opt for denial.” (Sam, on a sober guess.) “Better pretend the kid never lived than face the trauma.”

“Oh, now  _that_ ’s fucked up.” (Dean, grimly.)

“So that ghost, little Chiara, she floated up in the ship’s wake. But once on land she couldn’t haunt a family that had cut links with her. And she was too small to move on. All she did was hover around.”

“One hundred years, and she never got mad. Only sad.” The psychic has tears in her eyes. “And when too sad, like now, she hides between this plane and the next, and I can’t pinpoint her.”

“Okay, this won’t do. Won’t do at all.” Dean rises, holding up a couple of large fries like a conductor’s miniature baton. “We need to coax her back. Sam, try and get that couple she was with to stay another night, we'll keep an eye on’em. Cal, see if you can hack into the State archives, pick her trail. Cas, get Mom on board. Stella and Jack, you’re to go full-on Cole Sear on the place, you hear me? Hang a windchime on every frickin’ tree if - _what now?_ ”

Poor sneaky Mrs. Lacko wavers in the doorway. “... I’m terribly sorry,” she says..” It just smelled so good in here, I thought -”

“No, no, do come in.” Ketch rises with sleek alacrity, his tie still impeccably striped and knotted above his apron top. “Mr. Campbell was just imparting his festive plans for Halloween. We at _The Sandy Toes_ pride ourselves on participative dynamics and love to hear our guests’ inputs, no holds barred, when it comes to entertaining them. Also, I am authorized to offer you these complimentary chippies.”

“We’ll never live up to her rec,” Sam whispers to Dean. Who is not to be talked down with _live up_ , not when there’s a lost kid to be found, so Sam puts on his pensive and broody shoulders instead and steps out in search of the Kebbleses.

 

* * *

 

The Kebbleses agree to stay another night. (Later on, they will leave a glowing review: “...we were fair chuffed with Mr Campbell’s offer to stay on for Dog’s Day, even if we were the only pet owners showing up for the beach parade. Still, an A1 experience.”)

Nonetheless, Dean has to put Operation Sixth Sense on hold, because even a God-sponsored B&B needs a little manpower. All the more when faced with the Hostel Manager’s Daily Bane, aka the guests who show up unbooked when he’s sold out. Which is when Dean finds they’ve been locked out of their email address (could be the tiny ghost’s abandonment issues vaporizing, or something). By the time he’s cursed a sea-blue streak and rerouted the DeSoto family to _The Clam Cottage_ across the bay, the old coot in Room 6, up to now the very model of a model guest, has noticed that his pillow is two inches thicker than the standard item recommended by the U.S. Tourism Advisory Board. And wants to know what his host’s gonna do about it. Sam returns in time to snatch the pillow from under Dean’s rump and switch it for a flatter model.

(“Nothing new under the sun,” Mary confides to Cas when he finally gets through to her. “Had his own pouf before he was five, to watch the cartoons with us. Speaking of, can Angel Radio broadcast _Hey Jude_?”)

Then there’s the guest who does show up announced, but with a horse. Turns out there’s a county race two days from now and the dude thought writing “jockey” next to his name on the reservation form was plenty enlightening, same as the Kebbleses’ “family of three”.

“Oh, so you do pageants, too?” Mrs. Lacko asks, hardly believing her luck. It takes Sam’s last morsel of patience not to damn them forever in the local channel’s opinion.

On the bright side, Jack and Stella have now bonded over mind-reading the squirrels and subsequently raiding the pantry for almonds. (Cas approves. Cas also thinks Sam and Dean should put a beehive in their front yard, because Cas’s hold on the English acronym is wobbly at times, but that’s another story.)

“Well, there go my Bakewell tarts,” Ketch shrugs, causing a major Deansplosion because WE HAVE A KID SITUATION HERE GUYS AND IF SOMEBODY MENTIONS PRE-ORDERED BREAKFASTS IN MY FACE ONCE MORE I’MMA PRE-ORDER A -

“There she is!” Jack says, and everybody pivots as one man to where the DeSotos once again crowd the doorstep. The ghost is only the barest flicker, slipping in and out of sight between the DeSotos’ twin daughters, but the sight is enough to draw a collective “Aaaah!".

“Please,” Mrs. DeSoto begs, mistaking Dean’s decibels. “We really hate to inconvenience you, but that cottage you sent us to had filled its last room by the time we got there, and -”

“Anything! _Anything!_ ” Dean cuts in, channelling his inner Chuck. “Come right in, folks. Let me see, yeah, we can totally fit you in the, er, Smith & Wesson Suite. Right, Sam? We’ll have it ready for you in a mo.”

“On it,” Rudy says smoothly. Not that he’ll have to sweat much. Both Dean and Sam keep their rooms in pristine order, their bed sheets pulled so tight under the mattress you could cut yourself on the folds. The hunter’s ethos: one part wishful thinking, three parts amends for the bloodstains, the power cuts, the cavalierly vanished bedlinen in every other motel.

He glances over his shoulder while heading for the linen cupboard. Sure enough, Stella is coaxing the girl into a step forward, a tiny hello, drawn in by Jack’s smile. The little girl’s eyes are half closed, as if she were listening to a faraway voice, and she’s showing no pang of wrath or deadly panick. Rudy, who has a daughter of his own, nods to himself.

So does Sam, watching Stella and Jack retreat step after step into the breakfast area, the little girl toddling up to them.

“What the heck is going on -”

“Ketch up, Arthur,” Sam says, not unkindly, and goes to help Dean with the new paperwork.

 

* * *

 

At 2 a.m. that night, Stella texts them that little Chiara has crossed the line to her final rest, lulled by her and Jack’s pooled repertory of songs, nursery rhymes and bedtime stories about the Promised Land, which Jack promised is steady and sunny and never _ever_ sways. Jack is off  to join Cas, Caleb is snoring his last painkillers off, a counterpoint to the Kebbles-DeSoto-Pepper combo, and there’d better be regular pancakes at breakfast.

“I’ll make a milk run at 6,” Sam tells Dean, bending his head back so as to wedge it between the headrest and Baby’s window. It’s been a while since they last slept in the old car, but the sensation is not unwelcome - _mixing memory and desire_ for a future as eventful and as trivial as the past twenty-four hours. “We need more eggs.”

“Mmm,” Dean says absently.

Sam lets his brother ease into his own appraisal of the day before he speaks again. “You know, she might not be the only one.”

“Sam.”

“You heard Caleb. Plenty of ghost kids stranded on the waves. Not dangerous, but denied, every bone and belonging sunk out of our lighters’ reach. You’re thinking of them, right?”

“Sammy...”

Sam points his thumb to the carriage house. Dean has driven Baby out - the August night is clear, no rains in sight before next week - and winged a makeshift stall for the horse and his human to crash in, complete with a bedding of straw (where did he even find straw?).

“And plenty of room here, if we set up a partition for Baby. We could have Cas fix some sort of signal, like a lighthouse. A first call to move on.”

“Sammy, I -” Dean’s voice is showing cracks; is showing light, warm and vibrant, through the cracks. Sam turns to face him in the car’s chiaroscuro. “A ghost foster stopover? Really? What happened to practical?”

“Eh,” Sam says. He ponders a bit. “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”

“John Winchester?”

“Mahatma Gandhi. So. What do you...?”

His brother doesn’t reply, but his gaze makes it clear they are primed for another small-print moment. Sam’s gaze answers _Born ready_ , even as he pushes himself up and sideways into Dean’s side, Dean’s warm, solid neck.

“And to think,” Dean says at last, “we once thought hunting had a monopoly on crazy.”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Sam murmurs, and lets the sea’s deep breaths time their own rest for the night.


End file.
